Re: -e test for file exists problem with dangling symlinks

[Chet Ramey]

John R. Vanderpool wrote:
> this will probably be considered a non-bug (because the same behavior
> exists in bash, ksh, pdksh, irix, and gnu coreutils!) but i'ld at least
> like to hear an explanation if possible.
>
> -e file exists test fails if file is a dangling symlink, this to me does
> not seem like the correct behavior, the test should not follow the symlink
> (lstat'ed instead of stat'ed).

Unless an operator explicitly acts on the link, it should follow
symlinks.  That is what open(2) does, for instance.

> if anything there should be a note in the man page at least.

The current (development) version of the manual page includes:

Unless otherwise specified, primaries that operate on files follow sym-
bolic links and operate on the target of the link, rather than the link
itself.

Chet
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
( ``Discere est Dolere'' -- chet )
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Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.tis.cwru.edu/~chet/